WOLF BROTHERS
GOAT
2021
PERFUMER
Laurent Marrone
violet
osmanthus
goat’s milk
mushroom
truffle
clove
cumin
cedarwood
conifer
Patchouli
vetiver
moss
fur
oud
costus
leather
‘I built this fragrance keeping in mind that it must be unusual and surprising. So I wanted to express the wild side of the animal. Goat’s milk, mushrooms, and truffle notes remind the wild nature where goats live, while we can feel the dirty, beastly, aggressive side of the animal, through animal notes such as costus, oud, leather aroma.’ – Wolf Brothers
Goat is a very intriguing scent; one of the most interesting samples I’ve tried in 2024. At the same time. it’s also not as challenging or outlandish as I was expecting given the notes and description, let alone the other reviews of it online.
To me, this is mostly an animalic leathery scent, but it has surprising, albeit subtle, amount of sweetness and fruitiness to my nose.
I see a lot of references to the goat’s milk and to ‘farms’, or even to ‘burnt fur’, but I don’t really get any of those things from Goat myself. Definitely not skanky in the sense of ‘barnyardy’ or ‘fecal’, but mostly animalic as a dry leather.
I don’t get a sense of milk on first wearing and given all the potentially ‘creamy’ notes, I was surprised how little I got from that texture. Instead, what stands out for me is a subtle fruitiness, maybe from violet, from osmanthus. At best, I could picture for example a plum scent, which usually has some creaminess. Perhaps most surprisingly, there’s a subtle, but sweet resinous candy vibe here as well, like melted gummy bears.
The sweetness, fruitiness and leather reminded me a little bit of a (significantly more daring and less cozy) Ella K Melodie d’Altai‘s type of leather, which I’ve always found surprisingly well-defined for its type of fragrance. I had not expected it in a million years, but somehow that may be the closest reference that I can think of. Which is a testament to Goat’s unique overall scent.
Goat is definitely a bit ‘out there’ and an ‘always sample first’ type of release, but I enjoyed it and I think it’s significantly more wearable and less challenging than almost any other review that I saw on it had made it sound. At the time of writing Goat retails for €124/50ml and in terms of concept, styling and quality, it exceeded my expectations.